Jean Patrick Nkuba dreams of becoming the first Rwandan to run in the Olympics. But Jean Patrick is a Tutsi and his kind are not supposed to win. When the president's assassination plummets the country into sudden and bloody chaos - Hutu against Tutsi, neighbour against neighbour - Jean Patrick is left without protection and without any choice. Now he must run: from his home, from his family, from the woman he loves. Finding them again will be the race of his life. Evoking the raw beauty of Rwanda and the tragedy of its recent past, Running the Rift is a truly stunning novel of a people's trauma, of lives lost, and of loves salvaged.
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Review:
Amazon Best Books of the Month, January 2012: No wonder Barbara Kingsolver awarded her 2010 Bellwether Prize, given biennially to an unpublished novel that confronts social issues, to Naomi Benaron's Running the Rift. In her coming-of-age story of young Tutsi Jean Patrick Nkuba, whose extraordinary gift for distance running lands him on the path to become his country's first medalist in track, one of history's most inconceivable chapters--the Rwandan genocide--becomes intensely personal. Out of a childhood marked by loss and overshadowed by mounting Hutu-Tutsi tensions, Jean Patrick draws the strength for grueling Olympic training and the courage to run his life's most crucial race--to save himself and his family. A vividly told tale with a memorable champion at its heart. --Mari Malcolm
About the Author:
Naomi Benaron earned an MFA from Antioch University and an MS in earth sciences from Scripps Institute of Oceanography. She teaches at Pima Community College and online through the Afghan Women's Writing Project. An advocate for African refugees in her community, she has worked extensively with genocide survivor groups in Rwanda. She has won the G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction and the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. She is also an Ironman triathlete.
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- PublisherOneworld Publications
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 1851689214
- ISBN 13 9781851689217
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages384
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